Directions: Read the following text. Choose the best word(s) for each numbered blank and mark A, B, C or D on the ANSWER SHEET. For many parents, summer is oppressive not mostly because of the heat but because of scheduling. The lengthening days are a hint of the specter of more than 50 million school-age 1 with six more hours of 2 time than usual. It’s a child-care chasm that I usually end up crossing by building an emergency bridge made of cash: for more baby-sitting, more late 3 , more hastily put-together sort of activities. 4 no matter how unprepared I am, I’ll never be arrested for my choices. That’s what 5 to Deborah Harrell, who was taken into custody earlier this month, officially for unlawful conduct toward a child, also known as 6 her 9-year-old daughter in a park in North Augusta, S.C., for several hours 7 she was at work. Her kid had a cell phone, and the McDonald’s Harrell works at was 8 , but the girl was there without adult 9 for much of the day, a 10 said. The mom’s 11 led to a round of national hair pulling about "How a person could even do that" 12 "How a person could even report that". 13 , about 40% of parents leave their kids on their own, at least for a while, 14 the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. Three states have even 15 a minimum age for being home alone, 16 from 8 years old in Maryland to 14 in Illinois. Kids have raced around outside by themselves since the dawn of time. That’s why those on the free-range end of the child-raising spectrum blamed the busybody who 17 Harrell. 18 she was doing exactly what child-protective-service agencies have asked U.S. citizens to do, especially since data 19 that child-abuse reports 20 to go down over summer but child-abuse incidents do not.

And
B. So
C. Thus
D. But